I Tried 100 Mixed Media Techniques

I'm pretty new to mixed media but today I'm going all in and trying as many different mixed media techniques as I can to really learn how to do it and why it's so popular I've chosen 100 tools and techniques and I've spoken to some amazingly creative people in the mixed media Community to find out just what's so special about this kind of art so I say trust the mess not even the process like let it be messy have several journals going at once see I've got one 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

10 11 12 I've got 13 journals there how many journals do you have going at one time or 10 six tons and tons while that dries I'm going to work on this and sometimes you know you get inspired by one thing and it puts you down a little creative Wormhole and that's where you'll be for a while so even in this demo she's working on what three different paintings at once I know I can't help it great you can't do it wrong if you don't know where to start start by making a mess and by

that I mean it's time to make some collage fodder just grab any supplies and start making something anything start coloring backgrounds start testing your tools mixed media is about exploring and learning not about trying to achieve a perfect result I used to be a huge perfectionist I've had to be intentional about learning to fail learning to leave things unfinished or imperfect and embracing the mistakes and as it turns out mixed media is the perfect way to do that there are no rules you don't have to start with a plan you can embrace the ugly art

because even your failures can be repurposed into something beautiful later my biggest challenge with this whole mixed media thing is Letting Go I've come from colored pencils and with colored pencils you need to spend time and get the details right so to let go and just embrace the mess in a way yes is probably the biggest reason why I to do mix medeor in the first place because it's something that I struggle with I am a perfectionist the mistakes are the happy moments that you didn't know and it's taking that freedom because those mistakes do

turn into that character and it's complete freedom to do whatever you want because when it's done it's just so beautiful collage fora doesn't just have to be the art you make it can be the things that you've collected over time and didn't know what to do with in fact my favorite category of collage foda is called E ephemera ephemera are all the little collectible papers that were originally expected to have only a short-term use or popularity like all the stuff that most Pap would throw away envelopes ticket stubs newspaper packaging old paper on notes paint

swatches cards stickers twe Money sheet music Maps receipts stamps playing cards the list is endless and all of it can be used for mixed media I'm sorry if I've just given everyone permission to hoard no still don't hoard just collect 20 people can use all of the same products and create totally different things which is amazing to me it definitely seems like mixed media is the perfect art for someone who can't decide what they want to do 100% cuz you just get to do it all that's been really interesting with mixed Med because all of

a sudden I'm using all these things that I don't normally use and so my space has been the biggest mess ever and all I keep thinking about is I need more storage I need more St I want a dedicated spot for my stamps I want a dedicated spot for my St you got the bug now I'm collecting all this ephemera and everything I see in the public like even bottle labels I'm like o could I use that it's it's this is a this is like dangerous you're speaking my language right now seriously like you you

have no idea okay I drink tea every day right like in the little tea bags I have gallon siiz Ziplocs of used tea bags that I've saved because they're really fun to make art on okay and my husband is like seriously how many of these do we need I'm like what am I going to just throw it away I don't think so this is from an this an egg carton and look at how cool these little little X's are I use this on the jelly plate you see texture and patterns everywhere now right 100% yeah

it's fun to build up a small collection of things that have a similar color theme or can be used in a collage you can even use some of these as backgrounds to create your own fodder or stamp and color them to match a style you're working towards what do I do with all these pieces [Music] now so if you're still wondering what mix media actually is it's quite literally any art made up from a combination of different materials and supplies if you've ever colored with markers and pencils that's mixed media if you've ever added paint

pen details that's mixed media too these examples aren't probably what you'll see in the suggestions if you Google mix media inspiration but the point is that you can use anything even if it's not intended to go together like acrylics and oil [Music] the use of mixed media goes right back to the early 1900s with Pablo Picasso's collage that used paper paint cloth and rope in a single piece mix media can include collage altered book art assemblage and even sculpture can what you do in mix media be summarized I'm trying I'm trying I think with um

other creatives my focus is in art journaling because I really feel like that is the starting point for everyone and that's the place where you can be the most free so if you are like ooh I'm not sure about that or I'm still learning I I got some new products and I don't know how to use them let me play on a journal page that is really a place where you can be free to play and uh and no one has to see it or everyone can see it art journaling sounds like the perfect place

to start so I've got my book and I have been filling it with as many different techniques as I can what's your favorite thing about out gentling um that there's no rules that anyone can do it you know people say what kind of art do you make and I say art for everyone like the gateway drug toine art I it might be butt ugly but it's not wrong and your Journal just for you you don't have to put it on the internet you don't have to show anybody don't definitely don't show your partner like they

don't care you do it for you and no one else and I think that's very empowering so let me give you a typical page that I'll often and teach beginners not that there's a right or a wrong but I think an art journal page has three components I think it has a background I think it has a focal point and journaling because I include journaling on or near or around my focal point and then I think it has what I call Top texture meaning those little extra things that make it interesting like splattering paint or

a little extra stenciling or you know extra Mark Mark making with aosca pen so I've barely started on this mixed media journey and I am already hooked it's art with no rules it's an opportunity to let go of your perfectionism and be fearlessly creative it's a chance to take risks try new things and use every Supply you can imagine there are no mistakes no barrier to entry just a big creative Adventure I still love my colored pencils but I can see myself embracing so much of this attitude and freedom towards art in everything I make

from now on um this is my upstairs Art Studio because you have to have art in all the rooms of your home if you didn't know that that's that's what I do and even by my couch I have like my color pencils and some of my jeane Davenport supplies like my water brush pens and speaking of Jane Davenport I'm speaking to her as well she is um if I can just say this she's literally she's I I don't I cry I'm going to cry I love her so very much she's my favorite artist of all

time and I love art and I love photography and I have a degree in photography and I have a lot of artists that I love and she is my absolute 100% favorite of all time I love that like you can start a page and not have a plan yeah and it does the pages don't have to make sense sometimes you create something and bang out of the gate in three Strokes you know you feel like wow like this this is what I meant to be doing you get that nice feeling and other times it's like

wrestling an alligator I have done so much drawing and painting and mix media and all this that I know the more Challenge and death spins that the artwork goes into the better the better friends we're going to be at the end I need to hang in there and eventually uh something will happen it'll turn around and it's this wonderful feeling we've got to hang in there and if all else fails just put paint over if you can just enjoy the the process so I say trust the mess not even the process like mixed media doesn't

really have any rules it allows me to fully experiment and experience color I went to an art class that I've just went to each week and the teacher would be saying to someone else don't use purple don't ever use purple before he finished the sentence my hand was on the purple and I was squirting purple I I mean it's just it's a Rebellion sometimes if I try and make things as ugly as possible that doesn't even work because color isn't ugly let's just take a few steps back and talk about backgrounds there are so many

ways that you can create a background and there's no right or wrong which is the case with every step in mixed media but every artist does have their own small set of techniques or personal art rules that guide their work and this style is different for everyone now how many layers going in the background you know that's a very personal choice um I tend to like three to five layers in a background another thing in dinol land is that I don't cover 100% of the substrate meaning I'm not going all the way to the top

I mean I'm connecting edges usually two to three edges but I'm not doing the entire real estate that's a Dena thing okay this is go you're you're getting Gospel According to Dena I've noticed that some of my background start as a huge mess and I don't always have a plan but it's just the first layer which really takes the pressure failures are never really failures they are opportunities to adapt and be creative in new ways lean into the mistakes make art from the mistakes [Music] today I had some extra black paint and I was like

oh maybe I'll do that on this page should I just can I just just put a strip through this you know I was like oh like I'm kind of just waiting for someone to DARE me to you know yeah just do it like yeah okay well the free what's the Worst That Could Happen can't make mistakes you just can't make mistakes the worst thing that can happen is you have to just do some more art because maybe you paint over it and you end up doing more art well you love doing art anyway so just

do more art good problem to have isn't it it's not exactly a punish it's good and don't worry if you can't figure out your style right away there are so many different ways to create you'll often need to try a bunch to work out which methods you enjoy the most and which Pages bring you Joy that's exactly why I'm just throwing myself in and trying as many different techniques as I can and seeing what I enjoy them most what looks good and what I'll maybe never do again so let's talk about the focal point this

is the first thing you see when you look at a piece of art and it's different for every page how do you choose what your focal point will be well if you have a subject on it the eyes will always be the focal point because as human beings we are reading body language and we are always going to um the eyes are always going to be what takes our attention or if there's um a pattern and over our brain loves patterns that will lock in on that or lettering so for this page I actually decided

on my focal point first I found a photo of Charlie Theon in a magazine and it felt like a good starting point although I didn't have a plan for everything else yet I started with some white gesso on the background and I made a collage with some different pieces that I've collected including this coloring style tissue paper that I saved from my coloring planner I don't think there was any particular point during this page where I knew what I was going to do next I used painters glue palette knives stencils I added stickers and I

asked myself multiple times do I even like this is this ugly but I just kept going I just kept adding layers and by the end I really liked how this turned out trust the process trust the mess okay I'll be honest I wasn't enjoying this today I had a picture in mind of what I wanted to create and I put a lot of time into it and I hated it I know that goes against everything I'm saying so far in this video but I was torn between wanting to abandon this page and cut this out

of the video or just change my plans and well take my own advice so I walked away took a break had some lunch and when I came back I had an idea on how to change this and create something totally [Music] different it's okay to be angry and frustrated about your art when you're you're feeling this don't give up yet walk away take a break and come back when you're ready to try something new I'm far more excited about this new page it's better than what I originally pictured and now it tells the story and

is a reminder to me not to give up by the way the supplies I've just used were all a special gift from Jane the last time I had a rainbow pencil was when I was like a little kid and I loved it okay so this one has pigment so o it'll be better the ones we had as little kids just weren't they weren't you had to PR pretty hard and you only had four colors this is like how many colors is that oh rainbow so it's one of my favorite things to create with the rain

pencil is actually amazing I don't want to stop playing with it now I actually really like this more than I thought I would yeah these look like they'd be really good for collaging just looking at what you've done on so I've got it like to reinforce pages but see I've got this is very fragile paper and so I've got washi tape on the core edges of most of it or different tapes maraan twists those I like drawing with lipsticks that's just like so nice to draw with they are so buttery and G and the colors

are gorgeous water soluble so you can get in there but they will set uh so if you want that full water solubility do that you know before they set oh dear we went full that wasn't the plan so these are the inks that make really cool skin tones part of me thinks this should come with a disclaimer of like do not try this at home the other part of me is like try all the things probably do better than I'm doing maybe while I do this we should like on the screen at the same time

put one of Jane doing one of these cuz then you can see what the potential can be of this but I'm playing I'm having fun maybe this isn't even about using different colors actually there's a whole lot of color in this one bottle so with mixed media as you progress you'll start to really concentrate on things that are water soluble and waterproof and that will become a big deciding factor in how things layer and once you unlock that for yourself yes isn't that amazing that's a neon pink permanent ink I mean you know we have

to try this wo that is [Music] bright so this has got um more skin tones in it oh they feel so nice look at that beautiful colors and this one's got like dark to light to cool warm all that and this one's got two mixing palettes so you've got a cool mixing palette and a warm mixing palette plus a beige so you've got a beginner skin tone just one skin tone but you you can make that lighter and darker neon pink because you can't mix neon pink and neon pink is an essential and black and

white I have to say I'm just really impressed at how much Jan's products just have a lot of [Music] color you cut out whichever bit you want to use okay and then just on the smooth side of it the more plastic side you just rub over and you can see it coming off the backing sheet and it will go onto your paper yep and transfers on oh this so much fun it wouldn't be a mixed media video without a gel plate let's give this a go oops it's probably a good thing I put this paper

down I've already played with one of these in my last video where I tried to reverse color a coloring page with some success but what better way to learn how to use one than to speak to the Creator herself this is such a simple method of printing and you can use so many different things to create textures and it's really fun to sort of look around your world and see what you know you look at the world very differently and you look at it in terms of texture and when I first started this I started

looking everywhere like my coffee cup I was thinking oh I could do the circles or you know the holder for a coffee cup you can unwrap it and there all The Ridges underneath it and so you start finding texture everywhere so it really helps you to see the O differently totally what I'm going to do is I'm going to apply acrylic paint to the surface roll it out put a texture on the paint and then transfer it to paper is that simple and people love to do layers so I'll do two layers cuz it's really

fun so I like to start with a lighter color for the base and these are one of this is one of my favorite colors isn't that pretty that is a nice color yeah I'm rolling in One Direction which helps just uh with the paint getting a smooth coat of the paint so now I'm going to take a texture so we love using we call it it's trash or treasure so you look around your house and you find different gems that could create really cool Textures in the paint and then put my paper down remove that

and then just press with my hand so now I'm just going to remove it and you can see from your trash you end up with a really cool design that's very cool yeah [Music] you just need a little bit of paint a little goes a long way when use this once in another video and that's the first mistake I made is I put way too much paint on this he you're not the only one I would say that is the number one issue that people have when they start to print that they use too much

paint yeah that's already like a lot of paint gee that's deceptive I felt like that was very little paint but it's got so much paint in it already so using masks when you're printing is really fun oh wow look at that and look at how cool that is so that's just two layers and it's already so pretty and you could keep going and do more and more layers and when it's dry you go over it with another color which reactivates that paint and then you pull the whole thing up paint stuck on the plate is

really some of the most beautiful things because if I let this sit here and then I just went and did another print on top of it and you just kept doing that and you never cleaned your plate your plate would end up with all this crusty paint all over the place and all these beautiful colors and then when you go to pull a print some of pieces of that come up in your print and it is stunning so some people never ever clean their plate The Accidental art that you get from it that's right what

inspired you to make this so my girlfriend has been a lifelong artist um when she was three her mother asked her what are you going to do when you grow up and she says I'm an artist also she's an encyclopedia of art materials she knows every art material there is and she was she worked in really fine detailed prints and works and so when she was needed a break she would print on Jello so she would make up a cake pan of jello and put it in her refrigerator and she called me over one day

and she said you have to see what I'm doing and I so I went over she took this big cake pan out of her refrigerator she dumped it out onto her kitchen counter I'm thinking she crazy what's going on she takes paint she rolls it out just like I did and then she took a comb and she went through the whole thing and she then put paper down padded it and she removed the paper she pulled her print and I looked at it and I went holy moly that thing is gorgeous so I am not

an artist I'm a business person so I do the same thing I copy what she does and I put the comb through I Pat the paper I pull it and I pulled the most beautiful print and I I said to myself right there it sort of clicked in my brain that if I can do this anybody can oh my God I could be an artist and you know what we all can be an artist no matter what anybody told us in the past but we don't know [Music] that I'm going to end up juicing a

whole bunch of backgrounds just from rubbing off the excess of the Breer and I kind of like [Music] them I am really loving every aspect of these It Feels So liberating to just create and not be trying to make perfect art and everyone I've spoken to has really inspired me that anyone can do this anyone can create a beautiful art even without being an artist but I'm not an artist I'm a Creator I like to I'm a actually I'm a technique junkie is what I am I love all things technique and when I can turn

this over and feel like I've created something so beautiful I think this is a lot of what I'm wanting to show you people on our Channel as well is that art is accessible it is and mixed media seems to be a really good I mean adult coloring is the same it is so accessible to anyone anyone can have a go but you can turn it into art and I feel like the mixed media is the same thing where it's like the mistakes become a part of it I'm a technique junkie I like the technique we're

going to have to introduce you as Stacy Park technique technique junkie that is what I am I love the technique of things I love learning how to mix things together and take things that you're not supposed to use together but use them together that is my happy place as well that is my happy I want to be so far outside the box that there really was never a box to begin with I love it you spend a day just throwing paint on tags you spend a day you get a new art supply and you're like

well how many 40 how many things can I do that I'll watch a ton of videos and I'll just make collage fod tons and tons I have boxes of it at home so it's kind of like a never-ending art Pace it is so do you have any kind of Fine Art training or any kind of art background or is this just a know at all so for a couple years uh I studied for two years to be a dosent at the Phoenix Art Museum and then I did I was a docent for seven years uh

which was lovely and um helped me learn to to to think about art or you know and speak about it um but I just read a lot and I there are people with a god-given gift and everybody else can work at it so I just work at it with all these new techniques and new art supplies and collections of fod and art it's time to pull it all together I've done this differently on every page sometimes I've created a bunch of Arts separately on different papers and then I've brought them into the journal in some

kind of collage sometimes those pieces become the focal point and sometimes they are just part of the background sometimes I already have a plan for what supplies I'll be using and sometimes I just keep adding layers until it feels [Music] finished so my mom died a few years ago now and this is my mom and dad on their wedding day with the turquoise color that they chose for the bridal party as well especially if you're a beginner one of the best ways to make a whole page look adhesive and intentional no matter how random it

actually is or the process that you followed is to use a color palette if you can be confident in your colors you can take bigger risks with everything else and just like every other Art Supply I've been playing with there is no wrong approach as long as you're enjoying making art in my own journal I've used a color palette from the color Cube for almost every page sometimes I followed them strictly and other times it was just the initial inspiration to get me going repeating the same colors in the background the focal point and the

top texture can really help to tie everything together that is one of my secret weapons is repetition so just so so things don't look just look like oh you just stuck that there I like to repeat a color repetition it it creates unity and rhythm in art so let's say I decide that goes on there and then what I'll do is I'll choose a color that already exists in the background so I've got that raspberry I've got some teal I'm going to overlap see that alone anchors it you create repetition and it makes it feel

it's cohesive it makes it feel like it belongs in the piece versus an afterthought right top texture is those little extra things that you do to just finish things off one of my favorite ever is called pox PX and the reason I call it pox is that every time I do it I'll do it over a face I've drawn or I'll do it over a stamped image and the the the paint splatter it's essentially paint splatter manages to get on the face of the person I've drawn or stamped and it looks like they have chicken

poox what I like about pox is that it touches a little bit of everything and so it acts as a great unifying tool right um and that's very typical Dina style background a focal point and then top texture yeah some other ways you can create top texture is with stamps paint pens more paints or even things like gold foil or gold highlights but be warned not all pens like all surfaces you'll ruin every pen you ever owned in your entire life done that before you go further I do have to ask you mentioned before what

do the words say so the words say whatever is authentic to my moment so right now I'll be like I am making artart with people at at the show blah blah blah um and it it it's just the way that I like to add text so there but there are always words is it ever just never yeah always words so there you go there are hidden messages in every book it's been 4 months since I started working on this and while I knew I'd have fun I didn't expect to find such joy and even freedom

in creating the pages in this art Journal I've tried a lot of different art styles on this channel and I'd love to keep exploring more Styles and using more supplies and revisiting some of my favorites but I don't think I've ever felt quite as excited as I have since discovering mixed media it's all of my favorite things together it's also been a really good rest fite during some hter days even with the pressure of recording all of this for a video one of my goals this year has been to work out where my passion is

and what art brings me the most joy and maybe it's a little bit of everything maybe this is exactly what I've been looking for you are in connection with that subconscious part of your brain whether you call the Muse or have more of a spiritual connection to it it does feel like it comes from somewhere else or a different part and you get these ideas that start to flow through or color combinations you can't explain and I just let that happen it's like a dream almost doesn't have to make literal sense to be nutritious and

beneficial and I just feel better when I'm playing with color if you're like me and are curious about how to jump into mixed media I'm going to share all of the supplies that I've been playing with my favorite techniques and a step-by-step process for a few of these pages on my website along with a list of some amazing mixed media artists worth following for inspiration if there was one thing that you could give advice to for a beginner whatever your favorite color is in that moment doesn't have to be your favorite color the whole of

your life just whatever intuitively is attractive so if I look out at my art class there's a neon pink and so I would get a little bit of that down on the page and just enjoy it going on the paper there really is no right or wrong the more you do the more mistakes you make the better because you find out not only what you like you find out what you don't like and that is just as important to know so just do lots and lots of art you love art once you're in you've let

that creative Part of Yourself be fed it is really it's just so much a part of what keeps you balanced and what keeps you yourself and then you can go out and ripple all of that good vibes all of that good energy out into the world and you can encourage other people to create as well